


Syncopation

by nanda (nandamai)



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Episode:, F/M, Movie: The X-Files: Fight the Future (1998), Romance, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 1998-07-15
Updated: 1998-07-15
Packaged: 2017-11-15 15:28:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,416
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/528759
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nandamai/pseuds/nanda
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pure sap. Our heroes spend a quiet evening after the movie is over.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Syncopation

**Author's Note:**

> This story was written (and is posted on Gossamer) under the very silly pseudonym Lilla Vaughan.

“If I leave now, they win.” Scully repeats the phrase with many more meanings than it had when I said it: determination, commitment, a promise, a private joke …and something else, something I’m afraid to put a name to.

She smiles as she looks up at me, the sun illuminating the frostbite burns still healing on her face. When she takes my hand I remember, for at least the 7,389th time, that we never did finish what we started outside my apartment. Goddamn bee. Goddamn virus.

As we walk away, our linked hands swinging lightly between us, I find myself stealing sideways glances at her. So close. So many times I’ve been so close to losing her. But this time was different than the others, and not only because we came so close to dying together. This time…this time she was snatched from my arms just as I was about to kiss her. To *kiss* her. My best friend, my partner, the woman I see every night in my dreams, the one woman I won’t allow myself to think about when I jerk off.

I had always thought she could never want a loser like me. Hell, I still thought that as I chased her down the hall that afternoon. But my terminal insecurity didn’t matter just then. Every instinct told me that if I didn’t tell her the truth that minute we’d both regret it for the rest of our lives.

So I told her. You make me a whole person. I owe you everything. I don’t want to keep going without you. Her eyes filled with tears then and I knew. She did want a loser like me, God help her.

She came into my arms, buried her head in my chest, pulled me down to meet her and kissed my forehead.

And then, and then…

I have to stop that line of thought before I get to the good part, the part that didn’t happen. That way lies trouble.

The sunlight slants at an angle onto her hair.

Jesus she’s beautiful.

“Scully?”

She turns to look up at me. “Mulder?” she teases.

Now or never, Mulder, I tell myself. The fact that we are still holding hands is a good sign; it might even be a longevity record. While we’re both conscious, anyway.

“How about buying me that drink you owe me?”

She’s looking straight ahead now, but I can see her trying to stop a grin from breaking out across her face. She knows exactly what I mean with that question.

“I have a better idea, Mulder,” she says, raising her face again. “How about we go back to my apartment and open a bottle of wine?”

I know an offer I can’t refuse when I hear it.

***

Sitting diagonally across from each other at her dining room table, Scully and I eat takeout Indian food and share a bottle of white wine. The wine came from her secret stash in a kitchen cabinet; I’m no gourmet but it sure tastes perfect to me. While I drink she leans on the table to dig her fork into my tandoori chicken. I swat her hand away but she’s too fast for me.

“Remind me why we bothered with separate plates?” I ask. Scully is so tiny, but her appetite is bigger than she is. I’ve never figured out what she does with all that food.

“Watch it, G-Man.” She attacks my plate again.

I take another sip of wine and let it slide over my tongue. Scully has changed into my favorite pair of Scully jeans, the ones that outline her ass just right, and a little white t-shirt. Her feet are bare. I’m wearing black jeans and a black t-shirt that I found in the trunk of my car. I don’t know how clean they are but they smelled okay when I put them on.

There’s something I don’t recognize on the CD player, but I like it, whatever it is. It’s soft and sort of jazzy, with a deep female voice. Scully notices the tilt of my head and knows I’m listening to her music. “Mulder,” she says, pinning me down with her eyes, “what is your favorite CD of all time?”

“Where’d that come from, Scully?”

“Nowhere.”

“Celine Dion. The one with that Titanic song on it.”

My quip is not even rewarded with a raised eyebrow.

“Yeah right,” she says. “Seriously, Mulder.”

“Seriously? Pink Floyd. Dark Side of the Moon.”

She snorts. “Figures.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

She shrugs and sips her wine. God she’s beautiful. Even with her face a spider web of burst blood vessels, like it is now.

“And yours?” I ask, brushing away a fantasy of eating dinner every night in her apartment. In the fantasy we always have time to talk about nonsense like this.

“I have no idea,” she says. “Too many to choose from.”

“No fair, Scully.”

“Who ever told you life was fair, Mulder?”

“Oh, no. Don’t you dare start sounding like my mother.”

She looks down at her plate and takes a slow bite of rice. Scully doesn’t like my mother very much. She’d never tell me, but I know. Ever my defender, my Scully, and she’s

convinced that my mother is heartless and uncaring. In a way, she’s right. But I let it go. It’s the last thing I want to talk about tonight.

“How’s your mother, Scully?” Mrs. Scully has been calling me or stopping by every day since I got out of the hospital after the Antarctic expedition. She’s even cooked for me. “She didn’t check up on me today.”

“Probably because you spent most of the day on the Mall eyeing women in spandex.”

What I really did for most of the day was rehearse all the reasons Scully had to leave the FBI…when I wasn’t remembering that very brief instant when our lips had touched.

What I say is, “You jealous, Scully?”

“In your dreams, Mulder. Anyway, Mom’s fine. I talked to her this morning before the hearing. Today was her volunteer day at the VA hospital.” She tears the last piece of bread in half so we can share it.

“You mean she hasn’t called to see how the hearing went?”

“I left a message on her machine while you were changing.”

It’s a simple enough statement, but Scully looks like a kindergartner who’s gotten away with a whole bag of Oreos.

I don’t have that psychology degree for nothing. “You told her I was here, didn’t you? Just so she wouldn’t call you tonight.”

“I may have mentioned it.” She looks up at me over the rim of her glass as she swallows the last drops of wine.

I lean forward until my face is inches from hers. “You’re just using me as an alibi. You probably have some big blond guy named Sven waiting for you outside and you don’t want your mother to know.”

“Yes, and Sven doesn’t like to be kept waiting.” Her eyes glimmer in the soft light as she smiles. Then she stands, tosses her napkin on the table and starts to stack the plates.

“No,” I tell her. “I’ll get them.” I head for the kitchen with my hands full. “Want anything else?” I call out behind me.

“No thanks.” I can hear her moving across the room as I put the dishes in the sink and run some water on them.

When I follow her, I find her on the floor, leaning against the couch, her legs stretched out toward the empty fireplace. She pours us both more wine before putting the bottle on the coffee table. I sit cross- legged against the chair and accept the glass she hands me. One of my knees is nearly touching one of hers.

We smile and clink our glasses together in a silent toast.

Scully sighs contentedly, which only reminds me of how fragile she is. I have seen her take down men twice her size, and I know full well that she has saved my sorry ass a thousand times. I still can’t help thinking of how easily she could be snapped in two. But this is too good to ruin with the usual Mulder despondency. I focus instead on the faint smile lingering on her face and the way she pushes her hair behind her ear with one hand.

“This is nice,” I tell her, raising my glass to my lips.

“Mmmm,” she says, with a sly glance at me. “No bees.” I choke on that, managing to inhale my wine. Then I start to cough and have to lean forward with my fist over my mouth. I hand her my glass and she scoots across the floor to kneel by my side. She’s laughing too, but she rubs my back and asks, “Mulder, are you okay?”

“Yeah” — cough — “I just” — cough — “tried to inhale” — cough — “my wine.” Scully hands me a tissue from the box on the end table, but her laugh only makes me laugh — and cough — harder.

When we’ve settled down a bit she says, still chuckling, “I’ll get you some water,” and starts to stand.

I grab her hand and hold it. “No. It’s okay. I’m fine now.” Cough. With my free hand I gesture to her to give me my wine glass again.

She waits until I’ve swallowed to speak. “I guess I need to work on my timing,” she says. Which only produces another round of laughter, but this time I can breathe. Our laughs quickly soften to intimate smiles and our eyes seem fused together. I’ll drown in hers but I don’t care. Let me drown.

I think of the taste of wine on her mouth and shiver. Then I raise our still-entwined hands and kiss her fingers, without releasing her eyes from mine. Her tongue darts out to wet her lips and she breathes in deeply. I cradle her head in my palm, auburn silk under my skin.

Oh God, Scully, I tell her silently. I want you so much. Do you have any idea how much I want you?

There’s less hesitation this time as we lean toward each other, and before I completely know what’s happening her lips brush against mine. Then again. Her hands rest on my shoulders. She lifts her head to approach from another angle, and I inhale as much of her as I can. I trace the outline of her mouth with my tongue, begging her to let me in. She laughs as she complies. Our tongues swirl slowly around each other in greeting before moving on to explore other territory. Her mouth is velvet-soft and tastes like curry and frozen grapes.

Jesus.

Please, God, I pray with the part of my brain that is still functional, No interruptions this time, okay?

Scully is the one to break the kiss, leaning back with a soft moan as her eyes drift open. We both grin like idiots as we share this moment we’ve been avoiding for years. I want to memorize the look in her eyes, the way her breasts gently rise and fall as she breathes, the spicy- sweet Scully taste on my tongue. But I don’t get much of a chance to catalogue the information being fed to me by my senses, because in silent agreement we start all over.

This kiss is hungrier, Scully’s tongue hard and insistent against the bottom of mine. I try to pull her even closer.

But that makes it hard to breathe, so I cover her jaw with feather-light kisses instead. Scully obliges, rolling her head back to give me access to her neck. I trace a line down and then back up, finishing by kissing the burns on her face. Then I pull her into my arms and tuck her head under my chin. She shifts a little on the floor so she can wrap her arms around my shoulders.

Scully makes a happy sound in her throat. I respond by rubbing her back and burying my nose in her hair, which smells of roses and ginger. Her fingers weave into my hair. Her breath is warm through my shirt.

I close my eyes and run my thumb across the back of her neck.

The CD player changes and another CD starts.

Then another.

“Mulder,” Scully says finally. Her voice is soft and a little sleepy, muffled against my shoulder.

“Yeah, Scully?”

She sits up straight, pulling her warmth away, and looks me in the eye. Her hand is still tangled in my hair.

“Would you stay over tonight?”

I feel a wiseass comment coming on. I can’t help myself.

“Oooh, Scully. I didn’t peg you as the first-date type.”

One eyebrow arches up and she gives me a patented Scully look that she then has trouble maintaining. She bows her head to hide her smile. I try to put her hair back into place; it’s been crushed by leaning against me. And come to think of it, my back is sort of stiff too. But who cares about a stiff back when the woman of your dreams, the woman you thought you’d never have and never have the guts to try for, has spent the evening in your arms?

“I just want to be with you tonight, Mulder,” she says when her eyes meet mine again.

The trust implicit in her offer is enough to make me melt into the carpet. I kiss her again, softly, lazily. Anything, anything she wants is fine by me. Yes, I want her. Yes, my jeans feel like they might rip at the seams. But God knows there’s not much reason to rush after five years, and I can see the promise of more to come in her eyes.

I imagine a sleeping Scully next to me. I remember her soft cotton sheets, which I have slept in once, alone. That morning I woke up smelling Scully all around me, on the edge of an unbearably real dream. But I won’t let myself think of the hateful words I said to her on the telephone minutes after that.

“Whatever you want, Scully,” I whisper against her lips.

In bed we share one last mint-flavored kiss before she curls up against me and is instantly asleep. I follow soon after, holding her tightly as I glide into a dream.

Me, Fox Insomniac Mulder.

In Scully’s bed I’ve finally found my peace.


End file.
